The best new travel tech and gadgets
From translators to phone holders, our expert pick of the best new tech and gadgets guarantees a first-class journey.
From translators to phone holders, our expert pick of the best new tech and gadgets guarantees a first-class journey.
The rise of travel gadgetry started in the Victorian era with fold-up alarm clocks, miniature cameras and portable irons. But if you needed to avoid speaking English loudly and slowly to make yourself understood on holiday then pocket phrasebooks were all there was.
For the past 15 years or so, though, there have been electronic translation gadgets. But while the technology has been impressive, none has yet really done the job. They’ve either had a very limited vocabulary, been impossibly slow, or needed an internet connection.
But Chinese company iFlytek now offers a remarkable real-time voice translation gadget that works offline for 16 of the most common language pairings. For weirder combos out of the 60 languages the device supports – say, Albanian to Swahili – you need a data link. However, the £300 iFlytek smart translator (1, RRP £319.99), which is smaller than a mobile phone, has two years of free global data.
It’s still not instant translation – there’s a heart-stopping pause of a few seconds, which means conversations are still a bit stilted – but this remains faster and better than anything else I’ve tried. It also has a camera for translating menus, signs and so on.
Misuse has given drones a dubious reputation, but as flying cameras they are huge fun. The unbelievably small Microdrone 3.0 Neo (2, RRP £99) from London company Extreme Flyers weighs under 100g, so doesn’t need a licence or permit in most countries. Obviously, check and check again for local regulations, but for holiday videos or inspecting dodgy roof tiles at home, the 3.0 Neo is a serious bargain at £99.
My mobile phone contract has a generous data allowance, but four times now I’ve been caught out by monstrous charges for calls. The first time was a 12-minute chat with an editor in New York (£98). Then I made three non-local calls from a remote spot in Canada: a work call to the US (£75.14), a one-minute restaurant booking to the nearest city (£8.84), and a 29-second local call (£4.43).
The problem is that Skype, which used to offer landline and mobile calls to anywhere for 2p a minute, is no longer in business. So now I’ve signed up to Yolla (3), which does much the same but is cheaper still at around two US cents per minute. It’s as good as Skype was – and a great relief it exists at all.
Using Google, Apple Maps, or Waze (Android, Apple) as your holiday satnav is a must. However, mounting a phone in a hire car is tricky. I’ve tried lots of gadgets but they’re all pretty cumbersome.
However, there’s a new type of generic phone holder online. They fold down to a palm-sized disc and once you get their vacuum mechanism to stick (try a few times), they are excellent – solid even on bumpy roads. Search on Amazon for “Vacuum Suction Cup Magnetic Phone Holder” (4). They cost from £5 to £20 or so.
Google Maps public transport directions aren’t always great. Faced with a tricky trip from central Paris to the outskirts recently, I asked Chat GPT and was amazed by the clarity of its directions.
Now Busbud, a Canadian app (Android, Apple) for bus and train ticket booking, has integrated itself into AI to make booking local services a doddle.
Type @busbud into the free Chat GPT app (Android, Apple) and ask for ideas for interesting local spots. Pick a destination, the app will book your tickets. Smart and stress-reducing.
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